Some debate groups have found it helpful to prepare cooperation agreements with media partners to ensure a common understanding of key aspects of the broadcast and what each party will contribute to the debate. Sample agreement provisions from a range of countries include:
- Shared Objectives — Affirm a mutual commitment to holding dignified, impartial forums that treat candidates equally in terms of lighting, audio, holding rooms, make-up and camera shots, among other production areas.
- Debate Arrangements — State the dates, location and format of the debates.
- Sponsor and Media Commitments — Delineate what the debate sponsor and the media are contributing respectively to the forums.
- Television and Radio Feed — Confirm arrangements on the distribution of the debate broadcast both for national and international networks.
- Campaign Ads — Prohibit the airing of paid political ads during the debate broadcasts if sponsors envision commercial breaks.
- Ownership of Broadcast Rights — Establish who owns the rights to the debate broadcast, including whether it will be made available to other stations. This can include post-debate provisions on using footage for campaign ads as well as longer term access by civic watchdog groups seeking to promote accountability of elected officials as well as academic researchers, educators and students.
- “Clean” Broadcast — Consider limiting the number of visible on-screen graphics that may be added by a media outlet to the debate broadcast feed. These images can be distracting to the audience or perceived as biased, such as news crawls, SMS text voting on candidate performances and real-time audience reactions to candidate statements (e.g. focus group dial testing), among others.
- Live Broadcast — Establish guidelines on whether debates must be shown live and in their entirety, in part to prevent selective editing of the broadcast that may be perceived as biased against a particular candidate.
- Production Costs — Confirm who will be covering the cost of producing the debate broadcast, including building the set, hiring the technical crew, etc.
- Debate Promotions — Enlist the media to run regular announcements promoting upcoming debates.